A recent report found that elderly people were being robbed, left hungry or going unwashed by workers from private care companies. Photograph: John Stillwell/PA

The Equality and Human Rights Commission's report last month found that council-funded home care provided to elderly people was, in some cases, in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. Many people were surprised at the report's findings. But not me. It was the wholly unsurprising outcome of the wholesale transfer of care homes out of local authority care and into the private sector. The council may have funded the care, but they were not responsible for actually providing it. It was consumerism meets care head on and no one could be in any doubt as to who the victor would be.

In my experience, as a disabled man reliant on care workers, carers do an outstanding job on the whole. My best rehab workers are enthusiastic and motivate me by setting achievable goals. Although some of my domestic care workers however, have not been so good. One came to my house and left a pan of raw carrots for me to boil despite knowing I can't walk without gripping my wheeled walker with both hands and I couldn't hold a pan of boiling water without spilling it.

So, what supervision is there? And moreover, what penalty do they face if they are found to be negligent in their duties? It is the management which is at fault. As I have written in a previous blog, one of my care agencies – the one that provides rehabilitation care – is outstanding. The rehab agency pays its care workers a higher rate than the domestic agency and trains them to a higher standard. It also pays its carers for their travel, which the domestic agency does not. Unsurprisingly the rehab care workers are far better at their job and more motivated.

The care workers from my domestic care agency have been given only a three-day rudimentary training course to ensure compliance with the law. I have finally been assigned a decent domestic care worker, but only after having first suffered several less decent ones. She tells me that before starting the job she was supposed to shadow another care worker for a day but at the last minute the management cut this altogether and sent her straight in at the deep end. Earlier this year their already meagre hourly rate was cut by 50 pence. At the same time, with no hint of irony, the management proclaimed that they were regretfully forced into the unenviable position of putting up the management charges.

If I was able to discern what these management charges are and what I'm paying for I might not hesitate in stumping up the cash. But as the management fee is more than double what the carers get I am at a loss to understand what exactly I am paying for.

Numerous times I have notified the agency well in advance of my absence, only for them to send a carer when I am not there. It isn't so much that the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing as the right hand is not aware that the left arm has been amputated below the elbow.

This would only be of fleeting interest, were it not for the fact that this agency has been selected by my local authority as the chosen provider of care services for adults. So it is of no surprise to learn that the existing management, faced with an burgeoning workload, promptly decided to jump ship. The previous management was a byword for incompetence and the current incumbents are no better.

Whenever I think of carers and their management, I always think of Peter Thompson's magisterial account of the First World War entitled Lions Led By Donkeys, which neatly encapsulates the lack of wherewithal the further up the chain of command one goes. So when abuses are uncovered at residential care homes for the elderly, I am shocked and surprised. My surprise is that it hasn't been discovered before now.